Saturday, April 6, 2013

New NIH funding for two Autism Centers of Excellence

A total of 11 centers now funded for up to five years

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $5.3 million in
initial one-year funding to the latest two recipients of the Autism
Centers of Excellence (ACE) program. With these awards, announced on
World Autism Awareness Day, these and nine other ACE centers around the country are now being funded for up to five years. The program was created in 2007
to launch an intense and coordinated research effort aimed at
identifying the causes of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and finding
new treatments. ASDs are complex neurodevelopmental disorders that affect how a
person behaves, interacts with others, and communicates and learns.
The symptoms, skills, and levels of disability present in people
diagnosed with an ASD vary widely. “While progress in research on ASD has been rapid, complex
questions remain about the causes of these disorders, how to detect
them very early, and how to intervene most effectively,” said National
Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Director Dr. Thomas Insel. “Centers
receiving ACE funding have marshaled the interdisciplinary expertise and
technical resources needed to move the science forward as quickly as
possible.” READ MORE: http://www.nih.gov/news/health/apr2013/nimh-02.htm